Kid Drogba loves game of catch-up

DIDIER DROGBA’S birth certificate shows he was born in March 1978, but he says he still feels like a kid inside his head. His start in top-flight football came so late he feels he has plenty of catching up to do.

Drogba looked back to his old self on Sunday as Chelsea claimed their first trophy under new manager Carlo Ancelotti by beating Manchester United on penalties after a 2-2 draw in the Community Shield at Wembley.

He made both Chelsea’s goals with a typically powerful display and then rammed home a spot-kick in the shoot-out to show he means business.

With a three-year extension to his contract signed a week ago, it seems striker Drogba has put the sulks and uncertainty of last season behind him.

He spent months of that troubled campaign complaining, saying he wanted out of the club, he needed a new challenge and claiming offers from big clubs such as Real Madrid and Inter Milan were coming in – although they never quite materialised into concrete moves.

It was only under caretaker-boss Guus Hiddink that Drogba shrugged off his malaise, put aside the injury worries and began to look a player again as Hiddink dragged Chelsea into the semi-finals of the Champions League and to FA Cup glory.

Now, Drogba insists, his mind is at rest, he is committed, and he is hungry. The reason? Although he is 31, he started playing at this top level only six years ago, unlike all his team-mates who came up through apprenticeships and academies.

Drogba kicked around the lower leagues in France for years until being given his break – and now he sees many of his old team-mates back home are struggling.

He has, belatedly, realised that he is on to a good thing at Chelsea. And ominously for the rest of the Premier League, he says he can and will get better.

“It is important to keep on improving,” said Drogba. “The more you play big games the more you learn. It is never too late to learn from them.

“Maybe some players get lazy, but I have been playing at a high level only since I was 25. So in my head I still feel young.

“For me the most important thing is to enjoy being on the pitch. I have a lot of friends in France without teams, without contracts, so I know how lucky I am to be at Chelsea and I want to enjoy it.”

After spells learning the game at Levallois in the Paris suburbs as a part-timer and student and a first professional contract at Le Mans – then in Ligue 2 – at the age of 21, Drogba was given his break following a strong 17-goal season at Guingamp in 2002-03. Then there was a big move to Marseille, and the following year a £24million transfer to Chelsea. It has been a meteoric rise and Drogba is intent on making the most of his shortened time.

“I am happy with the new contract, but I knew what I was doing, even last year,” he said. “That is why I am here. I am feeling good. I want to play and I am really happy to be on the pitch and to have my team-mates. I want to give people a good season.

“But I know I need to improve. Out there on Sunday I lost the ball a lot, something that is not normal. I need to reduce the amount of mistakes.

“The good thing is that we won but I can improve – not just on scoring but on making goals too – and we can improve as a team.”

But, warned Drogba, this season Chelsea have to learn to start games better or else they risk being left behind. On Sunday, once again they conceded a goal to Nani before fighting back, exactly as they had done in the FA Cup final against Everton last May.

Drogba said: “We always have this problem that we don’t start well. Yes, we always seem to come back strongly but we need to change things because sometimes we are going to concede more than one goal and then it is going to be really difficult.”